Why Conventional Blogging Wisdom Sucks (And What to Do Instead)

I can’t even begin to tell you how much of what I read online as blogging and marketing advice makes me ill. And I’m not even talking about brand-new wannabes with no real experience under their belt, although there’s plenty of those, too. No, I’m talking about major business sites pumping out the most vapid, insipid, insight-free content imaginable. Sites with major subscriber numbers.

However, this isn’t a rant.

That might make me feel better, but it wouldn’t do anything helpful for you.

Sheep and Shepherds

When I talked about online business people being divided into pimps and prostitutes earlier, that got people thinking (the ones that weren’t pissed off, that is). But now I want to apply a different analogy: sheep and shepherds.

I’m sure you see where I’m going with this.

I know which one you tell yourself you want to be.

But which one are you in reality?

Let me ask you some questions:

• Do you read stuff about “best practrices” for how to blog and market online business?
• Do you look to see what the top dogs are doing and try to model their actions?
• When someone says a method, strategy or technique worked for them, do you assume it will work for you?
• Do you constantly compare yourself to the top people in your field and find yourself lacking or feeling jealous? Or worse yet, frustrated at your inability to duplicate their success?
• Do you view others as successful because they’re already a success? In other words, the “easy for you to say, Mr. A-List” attitude?

Baa, baa.

Success and Safety Don’t Mix

You can’t be successful and feel safe. Safety is always an illusion.

There’s no formula to follow that works for everyone else and you, too.

You can’t be a leader by following the paths of others.

If you do what everyone else does, you’ll get what everyone else gets.

And since over 90% of all businesses fail, how is that even remotely a good idea? Everyone else isn’t succeeding, only a few people are.

There is a tension within us to deal with: we want guarantees of success but real success is risky as hell. Guarantees of success only guarantee “me-too-ism,” also-rans and mediocrity.

Technique Divorced from Strategy is a Failure

When you see stuff online about how to get more traffic or how to rule in SEO or how to grow your social media followers, what you’ll see is technique divorced from strategy. What you see is “conventional wisdom.” Strategy can only be formulaic at such an abstract level it’s practically worthless to even write about it (that doesn’t stop millions of lame blogs from trying, though).

Strategy and direction comes from the heart as well as the mind. There’s no formula for that. There is no training program for that. However, working one-on-one with someone who knows what the hell they’re doing can lead to some amazing reinventions, breakthroughs and successes. The reason for that is you’re too close to your own shit to see it properly. Your own head is an echo chamber. Bringing in someone else lets you see things better and muffles the echoes, leading to clarity.

Technique is a product of strategy. When you’re clear on strategy, technique is often self-evident. But when you’re tied to conventional wisdom, you can’t see it, because it doesn’t fit the picture you already have about “how things are supposed to be done.”

Here are a couple of examples. Over at International Freelancer’s Academy, I wrote an article that completely flies in the face of conventional blogging wisdom, called Everything You’ve Been Told is Wrong — The Truth about Marketing Your Freelance Business with a Blog. In that training article, I talk about how conventional blogging wisdom can actually harm your freelance business by–irony of ironies–having a successful blog!

In the planning I’m doing with a client for the complete reinvention and transformation of her business, she pointed out to me that I’m giving her advice that’s “totally different from the norm.” I told her that I try to apply reality to the situation rather than the other way ’round.

Don’t Let the Tail Wag the Dog

Let me paraphrase something I say in the article I linked to above:

You don’t want a successful blog. You want a successful business.

The difference is subtle, crucial and very real. Most of what you see online is trying to give you the former, not the latter. The biggest difference between me and everyone else out there is that I know that blog objectives are not the main objectives. They’re not “unto themselves.” The blog serves the business. This is why my clients are successful (and incidentally, why I am, too).

If you follow the conventional wisdom, you will have a successful blog, yes, and it won’t mean shit because a successful blog is not a successful business. Or, to put it another way, you want a successful blog in terms of how it helps your business succeed. That’s the only way that matters. If your blog is successful according to the conventional wisdom but you’re not making any money, what the hell good is that?

If you find yourself thinking, “I need more traffic to my blog,” you’re a sheep. If you’re wondering what you can do to get more/better quality sales in your business, you’re a shepherd.

Focus on business objectives first and above all else. Blogging, social media or any other marketing objectives are subservient to the business objectives.  Do this, and you will see as a shepherd sees and act as a shepherd acts, instead of following the herd off a cliff.

Image by James Bowe